The term trauma is used to describe a mental condition due to the painful and distressing situations experienced by a person. Most people do not express trauma explicitly, but there are some symptoms that indirectly can be related due to trauma like mood problems or behavioral disturbances. Now, when referring to children who have experienced or are experiencing trauma, it is difficult to identify or to understand. Psychologists use a mixture of six types of coping strategies: belief, affect, social, imagination, cognitive, and physiological. The film “Pan’s Labyrinth” by Guillermo del Toro narrates the story of Ofelia, who is a bookish eleven-year-old girl that loves fairy tales. She and her pregnant sick mother, Carmen, arrive at her heartless …show more content…
stepfather, Captain Vidal, village where he is the captain of the Spanish army. This movie shows how Ofelia copes with trauma by creating an imaginary world and imaginary creatures like fairies and a faun, Pan, who gives her three tasks to complete in order to get immortality and be a princess. The relationships between Ofelia and the adults is in a flux state forcing her to adapt to different coping methods such as social, imagination, physiological, and affect. [Topic sentence] Ofelia tries to separate herself from her mum since she feels disgusted by many ways in which she conducts things, but she remains babyishly dependent. Although normal, this developmental stage is taking place under extreme circumstances. To develop a non-conflicted and a mature identity of a female adult, a girl should separate from and identify with an important female or her mother. However, in this situation, Ofelia does not have choices to choose from. Unfortunately, her mother obeys everything the captain says and strictly asks Ofelia to do the same. [topic sentence] One of the coping methods that relate to Ofelia’s relationship with her mother is the social coping style. According to this method of coping, an adolescent who copes with hardship through the use of the social channel looks for control and support through the structure of his relationship. The responsibilities that are allocated to a youngster in a social situation like a classroom or a family help in decreasing isolation and increasing connections as well as in strengthening the well-being sense of a child and restoring the emotional security. In the case of Ofelia, her mother allows her to rest her head on her belly with a camera. “She positioned the camera at the foot of her mother’s bed and descended into her womb where they could see the baby suspended in glowing and warm amniotic fluid.” [Topic sentence]Another coping method link to Ofelia and her relationship with her mother is the imagination coping style.
According to this method of coping, kids often refer to their creativeness as a way of deal with distress (Frank). This method claims that a preschool kid is likely to recreate with toys on a witnessed car accident, a primary school child is expected to come up with a factious essay on how a relative who had been murdered in Iraq comes home breathing as a conqueror while a high school scholar is expected to apply gallows humor in dealing with a recent tragedy in the community. This implies that adults are responsible for providing their children with opportunities to put across their thoughts resourcefully through providing them with the encouragement, environment, possessions, and materials essential for supporting their hard work. Educators are also responsible for creating time for the learners to do music, drama activities, compositions and art projects. In the case of Ofelia, her mother assists her to cope with trauma through encouraging her to narrate a story to her unborn brother as a way of calming his nerves. “Tell the little one a tale to cool his anxiety as well as …show more content…
yours.” [Topic sentence] The last coping method used between Ofelia and her mother is the physiological coping style.
According to this method of coping, physical activities offers coping accomplishment to many kids. Whether formal in the form of impulsive hands-on busywork, exercise or games, there are means of motion (Frank). This is because kids do not have the ability to handle intense issues in a manner that is continuous and as a result, they need to be abstracted. According to this method, directed physical activities are said to have a dual benefit since they allow the required shock absorber time and permit for the informal traumatic experiences processing to take place in a format that is non-threatening. This implies that opportunities for informal and formal physical activities ought to be abundant. In the case of Ofelia, her mother provides her with physical activities such as a camera as a way of offering her with the coping accomplishment. “She moves the camera to the right to focus on the mountain and the roses that she had initially talked about in her story and the insect, and she had previously encountered in the
forest.” [Topic sentence] In the movie, one can see how tense and distant the relationship between Ofelia and her stepfather is. Affect is one of the coping methods that can be linked to the captain. This method is associated with emotions and feelings and a kid who uses it relies on the ability to ventilate or to express through emotions. Such a child requires the opportunities to share her grief, sorrow, anger, fears, and anxieties and ensures that the adults around her validate those emotions. According to this method, parents are responsible for fostering the emotional development of their children through modeling genuine and open expressions of feeling while still emphasizing their availability. Captain fails to provide Ofelia with the opportunities to express herself and also fails to foster her emotional development. As a result, Ofelia terms her as “an evil stepfather to be.”
Rudolfo Anaya’s, Bless Me, Ultima and Guillermo del Toro’s, Pan’s Labyrinth are two coming-of-age stories. Both the novel and the movie are full of events that contribute to the disillusionment of the main character’s childhood idealism and the realization of the real world they live in. Both protagonists absorb themselves in a mythical world full of fantasy and each receives exposure to religious theology and trauma by the violence of men. Despite the fact that Antonio and Ofelia have different familial role models and travel along different paths, their childlike innocence, disillusionment, and initiation into adulthood comes about through similar themes: myth, religion, and violence.
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) written and directed by Guillermo del Toro is a dark fantasy film that uses fantasy and inspired true events of the after effects of the Spanish Civil War to create a symbolic parable that was influenced by fairy tales and myths. Even though this film is explicitly about the times during Franco it is also a film that can speak for any time period, past, present, and future. Through the use of phantasmagorical elements in the fantasy sequences del Toro uses doubling to reinforce the horrific events that have and can happen again in reality. The film takes place five years after the Spanish Civil War during Francisco Franco’s reign of terror. The story focuses on Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) as well as Ofelia’s evil stepfather, Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopez). Both characters represent something bigger than they actually are; Ofelia is seen to represent Spain and the antifascists whereas Captain Vidal represents Franco and fascism. Ofelia has to complete three daunting tasks given to her by the Faun (Doug Jones) that is said to reunite her with her family, the King and Queen of the Underworld. Del Toro uses doubling of the mythical realm with the ‘real world’ throughout the film that emphasizes the underlying meaning of the film. The film also follows the story of the anti-fascists rebels that are hidden amongst the trees and mountains. The character Mercedes (Maribel Verdu) is able to fool Captain Vidal for most of the film and help the rebels. It is not until the near end of the film where Captain Vidal realizes that Mercedes has been helping the rebels the entire time and it is due partly because of his misogyny that he is unable to see her as a threat to his cause.
In John Connolly’s novel, The Book of Lost Things, he writes, “for in every adult there dwells the child that was, and in every child there lies the adult that will be”. Does one’s childhood truly have an effect on the person one someday becomes? In Jeannette Walls’ memoir The Glass Castle and Khaled Hosseini’s novel The Kite Runner, this question is tackled through the recounting of Jeannette and Amir’s childhoods from the perspectives of their older, more developed selves. In the novels, an emphasis is placed on the dynamics of the relationships Jeannette and Amir have with their fathers while growing up, and the effects that these relations have on the people they each become. The environment to which they are both exposed as children is also described, and proves to have an influence on the characteristics of Jeannette and Amir’s adult personalities. Finally, through the journeys of other people in Jeannette and Amir’s lives, it is demonstrated that the sustainment of traumatic experiences as a child also has a large influence on the development of one’s character while become an adult. Therefore, through the analysis of the effects of these factors on various characters’ development, it is proven that the experiences and realities that one endures as a child ultimately shape one’s identity in the future.
It is not often that a strong and significant female character is introduced in a movie and/or book as the main character. Pan’s Labyrinth, though not the typical fairy tale, introduces the viewer to three females that prove controversial and necessary to the plot, which passes the Bechdel Test, designed to identify gender bias in the media. There is Carmen, the loving mother, Ofelia, the supposed princess/innocent girl, and then there is Mercedes, Captain Vidal’s maid and rebel spy. These three women show different portrayals, different characterizations, of how women should defy the gender bias in films.
In the movie Pan's Labyrinth, Ofelia escaped the frightening and commanding presence of her stepfather though her fantasy books and her immense imagination. This theme of escape from oppression is also evidenced in the novel The Book Thief, where Max escapes his oppressive reality through writing and his friendship with Liesel. Liesel herself was able to escape the reality of the war that was around her, and the death of her brother through her love of books and reading. This may lead one to wonder whether there is some truth in these fictional tales, is it possible that books and the act of writing can help one to survive an oppressive situation psychologically, and what factors contribute to an individual overcoming oppression?
There is no doubt that children have a very innocent mind and it is not as easy for them to understand unfortunate events. Though they are still affected by things such as the death of a family member, natural disasters and circumstances of that kind. In the film Beasts of The Southern Wild, Hushpuppy faces a few fatalities which are approached using coping methods. These methods are found in the BASIC Ph Coping Model developed by Dr. Mooli Lahad who is the director of the Community Stress Prevention Center in Qiryat Shmona in Israel. Hushpuppy’s relationships with adults, her mom and also her dad, can easily be linked to some of these coping methods.
"Pan 's Labyrinth" is directed by Guillermo del Toro, is a magical realism drama. The screen shows the magical world of bizarre situations, a fictional out of Pluto 's daughter "Ophelia" to roam the world. To 1944 as the background, the fascist murder of guerrilla fighters as a real-world story. The whole film myth and reality are intertwined, is a complete metaphor and reflection on the Spanish civil war. One side is the little girl innocent fairy tale, while the Nazis are inhuman torture and slaughter. Two living scenes intertwined in a film, brings out a moral and human conflict. This is the child to see everything in the eyes, and what we see, it seems that the other world.
In 2012 the film The Hunger Games hit theatres and became a success. The success of the film was originally fueled by the fan base of the Suzanne Collins authored trilogy of the same name, but it soon gained popularity amongst those who had not read the trilogy as well. You could relate the movie to sociology in one of two ways. The first option would be to write about how the film became a cultural phenomenon or other theories relating to its success. This paper will be written using the other way, which is to write about the movie itself through a sociological point of view by writing about how culture, social control, and stratification are featured in the movie and how people with different sociological perspectives may view the film.
The film Pan’s Labyrinth, has several common concepts with Joseph Campbell’s theory on heroes in Hero with a Thousand Faces. His theory emphasizes on tests that show their moral and basic instincts for the rite of passage to their threshold, in this case, the underworld. Campbell’s theory is a concept that surrounds an individual’s journey to heroism. This concept pertains to Ophelia due to her circumstances as a child who ventures out on thresholds, tests, and so forth. Campbell’s depiction relates to Ophelia as he describes the levels in which one must attain and accept as a female heroine. Furthermore, his theory exaggerates on the making of a hero to the resurrection in terms of physical and spiritual transformation. Ophelia’s character depicts a hero who has been resurrected as a human. Thus, she begins her journey to cross the threshold, “pass from the everyday world in the world of adventure,” (Campbell). There are many stages in the film that depicts Ophelia’s introduction to the stages of being a hero. More so, it focuses on tasks, which Ophelia must pass or fail in order to determine her role in the film; Princess of the Underworld or just a human soul. This is lead by the faun who simply reassures a place of ‘paradise’ for Ophelia only with her cooperation to listen and follow her morals.
In a not-too-distant, some 74 years, into the future the United States of America has collapsed, weakened by drought, fire, famine, and war, to be replaced by Panem, a country divided into the Capitol and 13 districts. Each year, two young representatives from each district are selected by lottery to participate in The Hunger Games; these children are referred to as tributes (Collins, 2008). The Games are meant to be viewed as entertainment, but every citizen knows their purpose, as brutal intimidation of the subjugated districts. The televised games are broadcasted throughout Panem as the 24 participants are forced to eradicate their competitors, literally, with all citizens required to watch. The main character throughout the series is a 16-year-old girl from District 12 named Katniss Everdeen.
My thesis statement is that children’s innocence enables them to cope in difficult situations. Children generally have a tendency to lighten the mood in sad situations because of their innocent nature. They turn even the saddest situations to mild, innocent situations. This is evident when Marjane says “these stories had given me new ideas for games”, (Satrapi, 55). By saying this she refers to her uncle’s stories of how he and other prisoners were tortured in prison. Stories of torture have never been easy to hear even for adults but Marjane so innocentl...
My group chose the movie, The Hunger Games, because we felt like it represented clear differences between today’s society and the society in the movie. This movie offers different mindsets and ideas compared to today’s modern society. For instance, the concepts of socialization, politics, and government are different in the movies society. In addition, the United States also does not select two members to compete to the death, nor split up groups according to power and wealth. Our government also does not allow the deviance like the movie does. The social changes are a huge factor as well in the movie. These are just a few concepts of sociology that will be discussed by the group that touch upon major cultural differences.
Childhood Trauma is defined as “The experience of an event by a child that is emotionally painful or distressful, which often results in lasting mental and physical effects.” (The National Institute of Mental Health). Childhood trauma is an epidemic that seems to be running its way throughout the world. Childhood trauma is a worldwide problem that can affect anyone and everyone. People tend to just try and help the problems that occur due to the childhood trauma, but not the problem itself. Many of these issues will also follow the child into their adult years and will cause negative effects. This paper will discuss the negative outcomes for a child who suffers from childhood trauma, and the negative outcomes that can follow them into adulthood.
According to the American Psychological Association, trauma is an emotional response to a terrible event. Some terrible events that happen all too often are rape, natural disasters or an accident. Immediately following the event shock and denial are likely to occur, but in the long-term flashbacks, unpredictable emotions and troubled relationships can arise. Defining emotional trauma on a child. Emotional trauma in a child can be created by bullying, emotional abuse, death of loved ones, separation from parent, or chaos and dysfunction in the household. Child symptoms of trauma can be very similar to depression symptoms. They can over sleep or sleep to little, unexplained anger, trouble focusing, obsessive worrying and some anxiety. How a child experiences an event and how it’s handled by those around him have an effect on how traumatizing it can be, notes Dr. Jerry Bubrick (Child Mind Institute , 2017). People grieve at different speeds and the way the child grieves is not the correct indicator on how the child will cope later. Defining physical trauma on a child. Physical trauma on a child is considered non-accidental or the cause of physical injury. Some households that suffer from alcoholism/substance abuse and anger issues have higher occurrences of child abuse as compared to households without according to psychology today. Sometimes kids that are abused are unaware that they are being abused and are victims of child
The film prince of thieves shows the arrangement of social relations among the nobility, and does so in a way where the viewer can see the vast difference between social classes. By using characters from various backgrounds, we can see how their social status can affect their social interactions. For example, the wingman of Robin Hood, Azeem, is a perfect example of how he is not viewed as a person. We can see this when they are in the Sherwood Forest and does not initially receive a drink. The outlaw inhabitants of the Sherwood Forest are another example of how they are mistreated, as they are wanted by the sheriff of Nottingham, and are forced to hide in the forest to rebel.